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Eat to your meter

hazelzac

Well-Known Member
Messages
92
Type of diabetes
Prediabetes
Treatment type
Diet only
Hello, I am a prefiabetic and practicing lchf diet since last 2 years ( few failures)
I am afraid I cannot stick to 20g carbs per day consistently so exploring other approaches as well ,
When you say eat to your meter what does it mean , postprandial glucose levels should be how much ideally I know less than 7.2 is normal but what is ideal ?

A) it should come back to pre meal blood glucose level or close to it

B) should not raised more than 2 mmol

My levels are always good hba1c is 4.7
 
Try to aim for option B: a rise of no more than 2 mmol/l two hours after the first bite. If that happens, it should mean your body can cope with whatever you put in there. Going down to the pre-meal level is next to impossible in 2 hours.
 
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With some foods my glucose levels go back to pre meal levels, like oat meal
 
lucylocket61 said:
It is possible that the spike comes later, around the three hour time. This happens to me sometimes.
Click to expand...

Actually yes it could be the case what you recommend how many times I should check my glucose level after a meal ? 1 hour 2 hour and 3 hour? I really want to know what is ok and what’s not .
 

LCHF is generally accepted to be under 130 g carbs a day, and 20g a day is actually pretty strict ketogenic, so there's no reason why you should have to stay that low carb unless you absolutely need (or choose) to do so. You really only need to eat as few/many carbs per meal as you need to keep your glucose levels under control and this definitely doesn't have to be a fixed number of carbs every day.

Eating to your meter is essentially a guide to help manage those carbs by monitoring your resulting glucose levels, so both your options A and B are useful, and are generally accepted recommendations rather than absolute requirements. When you test will to a certain extent depend on what you're eating - e.g. for a carby meal try testing pre meal for your base level, then 1 hour post meal for any rise then the 2 hour point to see how close back to base you are; for combinations of higher carb and higher fat food (e.g. pizza) test pre meal, then 1 hour, 2 hours and 3 or so for a late spike; though this combination of both higher carbs and fats will give me a long "hump" rather than a later sharp rise.

I follow both options depending what I want to know, and aim to have a minimum post meal rise followed by under 2mmol higher than pre meal at the 2 hour point if I'm monitoring something slightly higher carb than normal; otherwise, I aim to be back approximately where I started. The high (i.e. normal full) fat part of Low Carb High Fat for me is an important part of keeping my levels steady and stable.
 
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Thanks a lot for your help I’ll follow your advice
 
20g carbs per day is low and you may find you can still control your BS on a higher amount. I tend to have between 100 and 130g carbs per day and have maintained my Hba1c in non diabetic levels for approx 7 years.
 
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